Christian Beliefs Increase in 2009

A Harris Interactive® Poll of 2,303 American adults on the Internet, taken Nov. 2-11, 2009, found that 82% of Americans believe in God and 73% believe Jesus is God and/or the Son of God.

These numbers reflect an increase of two percentage points from the same Harris poll taken in 2008. No wonder the number of movies with at least some positive Christian content or values increased in 2009 compared to the previous two years.

By contrast, belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution, ghosts, reincarnation, UFOs, astrology, and witches all seems to be dropping.

These positive trends reflect what God teaches us about God, Jesus Christ, science, and theology in the ancient, historical, inerrant documents of the Bible, whose historical reliability and truth have been confirmed by more than 100 years of modern historical, scientific, and textual research.

Harris Interactive®, 12/15/09

Category

Believe In

Don’t Believe

Not Sure

God

82%

9%

9%

Miracles

76%

13%

12%

Heaven

75%

13%

12%

Jesus is God and/or Son of God

73%

16%

11%

Angels

72%

15%

12%

Life after death

71%

10%

19%

The resurrection of Christ

70%

17%

13%

The Virgin Birth

61%

22%

16%

Hell

61%

24%

17%

The Devil

60%

27%

13%

Darwin’s theory of evolution

45%

32%

22%

Ghosts

42%

38%

20%

Creationism

40%

30%

30%

UFOs

32%

39%

29%

Astrology

26%

52%

22%

Witches

23%

59%

17%

Reincarnation

20%

53%

28%

A poll of 1,017 American adults taken by Gallup in May 2008 found that 78% of Americans believe in God, 15% believe in a “universal spirit” or “higher power,” and 6% believe in neither.

The poll also showed that Republicans are more likely to believe in God (89%) than Democrats (77%) and Independents (70%). Nearly a quarter of Independents believe in a universal spirit or higher power (22%), compared to 14% of Democrats and 9% of Republicans.

Finally, the poll found that Americans in the South were much more likely than Americans in the West to believe in God, 86% versus 59%.